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2 weeks ago | 
brookings.edu | Sweta Shah |Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
June 11 marks the second annual International Day of Play. It reinforces the latest data from the science of learning: Free play and playful learning should be intertwined into children’s lives so that they can flourish academically and socially while becoming collaborative, critical thinkers, creative innovators and citizens of tomorrow.
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1 month ago | 
brookings.edu | Sweta Shah |Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
The Trump administration wants to incentivize a baby boom by offering a $5,000 cash “baby bonus” for every mother who gives birth. Ironically, the administration is also proposing federal cuts to family-friendly programs such as the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Head Start, and more.
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1 month ago | 
brookings.edu | Elias Blinkoff |Natalie Evans |Sophia Espinoza |Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
In late January 2025, the U.S. Department of Education and raised alarm about what they mean for our nation’s students. We acknowledge the concern about the latest scores. The NAEP is widely considered the “gold standard” assessment of student achievement at the national level, and has for decades offered valuable insights into the performance of our education system. Yet, it is still vital to put the most recent NAEP results in context.
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Mar 26, 2025 | 
inquirer.com | Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
For the past seven weeks, my academic sabbatical took me to Chile and Australia. In the normal course of things, seven weeks is not a long time. But times are not normal, and the country I left is vastly different from the one I returned home to. As a professor and scientist, I was quickly privy to a list of newly forbidden words. Terms like women, community, and diversity were declared out.
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Jan 22, 2025 | 
brookings.edu | Elias Blinkoff |Sophia Espinoza |Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
We want a society run by people who are smart, yes, but who are also wise, perceptive, curious, caring, resilient, and committed to the common good. David Brooks, The Atlantic, December 2024 David Brooks joined a chorus of writers who identified President Donald Trump’s reelection as a reckoning for the educational elite.
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Nov 8, 2024 | 
brookings.edu | Sweta Shah |Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
Children do not vote, so it is easy to deprioritize their needs. But adults in their families do, and many of them hope Donald Trump and the Republican party can reduce financial burdens so that they can comfortably raise children. President-elect Trump will now have a chance to push legislation through Congress that can lower prices for all Americans and especially working families.
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Jun 18, 2024 | 
youthtoday.org | Lisa Guernsey |Kathy Hirsh-Pasek |Roberta M. Golinkoff
We should make decisions about youth using technology after exploring three different perspectives.
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Jun 15, 2024 | 
mdpi.com | Elias Blinkoff |Roberta Michnick Golinkoff |Kathy Hirsh-Pasek |Kimberly Turner Nesbitt
All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No specialpermission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. Forarticles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused withoutpermission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer tohttps://www.mdpi.com/openaccess.
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Jun 11, 2024 | 
bold.expert | Brookings Institution |Kathy Hirsh-Pasek |Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
Have adults forgotten how to play? In 2023, a viral TikTok video asked adults a simple question: “Do you remember how to skip?” Many did not. In a recent survey of 25,000 children, across 36 countries, 73% reported that the adults in their lives did not take play – and how it can help children learn – seriously. Yet a large body of scientific evidence demonstrates that play offers children social-emotional, physical, and academic benefits.
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May 28, 2024 | 
hechingerreport.org | Lisa Guernsey |Kathy Hirsh-Pasek |Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
Clouds of doom continue to hover over the debate about teens’ mental health and the role of technology. This spring, the warnings come from the bestselling book “The Anxious Generation” by sociologist Jonathan Haidt. Some parents and educators are calling for a ban on smartphones and laptops in schools. Others are trying to press pause on the panic by pointing to research that needs a longer look.
